


and i couldn't name the feeling carried in that voice

by sapphicbecca



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Spoilers through MAG 120, and then one more phone call the night before the unknowing!, basically just a bunch of phone calls while jon is out traveling, set over the second half of s3!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26920471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicbecca/pseuds/sapphicbecca
Summary: He’d thought about calling Martin, back when everyone still thought he had Leitner’s blood on his hands. There were far too many late-night moments where his thumb hovered over Martin’s name in his contact list, where he thought if he couldn’t trust Martin, then he couldn’t trust anyone. He always turned his phone off and went to sleep instead.But now the phone rang, and it rang, and it rang, and it rang, and Jon held it close to his ear, waiting.-Or: a series of late-night phone calls as the Unknowing grows ever closer.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 24
Kudos: 135





	and i couldn't name the feeling carried in that voice

**Author's Note:**

> a big thank you to hannah [@gauras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gauras) for reading this one over for me!! your help is as always very very appreciated 
> 
> content warnings:  
> mentions of smoking, and contemplation of imminent death/dying (primarily jon being convinced he isn't going to survive the unknowing)

It was nearly midnight when Jon’s phone rang. 

He blinked, bleary-eyed and still dwelling in the last dregs of sleep as he rolled over on the stiff hotel bed and moved his hand about to find wherever he’d placed his phone before reluctantly heading to sleep less than an hour ago. It took a few seconds before his scrabbling fingers managed to find the still-ringing phone sitting between the alarm clock and the now-lukewarm glass of water, and he grabbed at it, unceremoniously disconnecting it from its short charger and bringing it close to his face so he could read the Caller ID without putting his glasses back on. 

His heart skipped a beat, and he answered the call immediately. 

“Martin?” 

“Oh! Hi, Jon.” 

“Er - hello,” Jon said, hastily attempting to sit and blink the last remainders of sleep from his eyes. “What’s - is everything alright?” 

“Oh, uh, yeah? Everything is - fine.” Martin paused. “Fine as things can be now, I guess. I was just calling, cause - well, you know how in addition to all the Circus stuff, you asked us to keep an eye out for anything concerning Jan Kilbride?”

“Yes, Gertrude mentioned him after a statement. Did you find anything?” 

“Yes! Well, sort of.” Martin took a breath and Jon could just barely hear the faint shuffling of papers over the phone. “Melanie actually dug up his statement from the back of a filing cabinet this morning, so we’ve all been looking into that, and I think she’s going to record it later this week.” 

“His statement?” Jon sat up straight, now wide-awake. “Was it-?” 

“About his trip on the space station _Daedalus,_ yep. I… skimmed it. Something about the unimaginable size of the galaxy, I think?” Martin’s voice went slightly up. “We weren’t _really_ able to figure out why Gertrude mentioned him, though, and since we haven’t been able to contact him or find him at all, it looks like he disappeared shortly after giving his statement.” 

“Damn,” Jon muttered. “Were you able to find anything else?” 

“Not much,” Martin said. “A few more familiar names mentioned in the funding, and, this one’s a bit odd, but it looks like every experiment he did up there was just a repeat of experiments other space stations had already conducted? Melanie’s looking into more stuff on outer space, but that’s about it. Sorry.” 

“Right, well - thank you, Martin,” Jon said, closing his eyes and rubbing a palm against his forehead. His headache from earlier from mercifully gone, but some phantom of the ache lingered still, threatening to come back in full force. “Really. Everything we can learn helps.” 

“Of course,” Martin said, and they lapsed into silence for a brief moment. When Martin spoke again, his voice had gone a bit gentler, chiseled down and missing that edge of professionalism that had previously assured Jon this was nothing but a work call. “So… how are you doing? How’s China?” 

“I’m - it’s fine,” Jon said, quickly. “I mean, I still haven’t completely adjusted to the new timezone, but enough seems to be in English here that I can find my way around?” 

“That’s good,” Martin said, encouragingly, and Jon could hear the smile in his voice, realized he could practically see it - half-formed and private, the kind Martin likely didn’t even notice he was making most of the time. Something in Jon’s gut turned over at the thought, and he suddenly wished he could have been back there with him, just to be seeing it now. “What about the statements you were looking for there - did you find them?” 

“Ah - sort of?” Jon said. “There was a bit of a, a mishap with the statements at the institution here. I accidentally looked over ones Gertrude checked out in 2004, but it turns out she sent the ones we’re looking for over to America.” 

“Not to the Institute?” 

“No, it’s strange, but it looks like she was also in the States at the time, though I’ve no idea why. I don’t have anything else to do here, though, so I booked a flight headed to Chicago tomorrow afternoon, should be able to follow up on an address I’ve got.” And wasn’t that just it - a treasure hunt, sure, just like he had told Martin, except all the clues weren’t where they were supposed to be, messily reshuffled and out of order. More and more Jon was feeling like he’d been handed an empty map and told to pencil in a route he’d never taken to some destination he wasn’t allowed to know the location of. 

“Oh!” Martin said. “Uh, wow. So… it’ll be a while longer before you’ll be back, then?” 

“That’s how it’s looking,” Jon said with a sigh. He twisted the corner of the hotel sheets with his free hand, and hesitated. “I… I’m sorry. I wish I could be there with y- with you all. I should be, really, I’ve just-” 

“We’ve got things handled here,” Martin cut in, voice firm. “Plus, what you’re doing is important too. I mean, we all need to know as much as we can about the Unknowing.” 

“You are right about that,” Jon said, and then failed to suppress a yawn. “Look, Martin, I should probably, er, let you go. It’s getting late, and I’ve got-” 

“It’s getting - _shit._ What time is it there?” 

“Uh…” Jon moved the phone away from his ear and glanced at the time. “It’s just after midnight here.” 

Martin cursed quietly again. “I’m sorry, Jon, I completely forgot, it’s only five p.m. here. I didn’t wake you, did I?” 

“No,” Jon quickly lied, “you didn’t, I was still - working. Looking over some notes I took today. Don’t worry about it, Martin.” 

“Right. Right, sorry. I’ll - I’ll let you go now, I - uh, get some rest, yeah?” 

“I’ll do my best,” Jon answered, and, for once, he intended to do exactly that. 

“Yeah. Goodnight, Jon,” Martin said. 

“Goodnight, Martin,” Jon said, and then held the phone up to his ear, waiting for that faint click and static signaling the end of the call that came a few seconds later. 

Jon clumsily plugged his phone in once more, closed his eyes, and wriggled back underneath his blanket. He was tired enough he could feel the exhaustion weighing him down, hovering around him like a ghost, but, still, it was a long time before he actually slipped back into sleep, Martin’s voice and the thought of Martin’s smile lingering in his mind. 

* * *

(He’d thought about calling Martin, when he’d been staying at Georgie’s, even when everyone still thought he had Leitner’s blood on his hands. There were far too many late-night moments where his thumb hovered over Martin’s name in his contact list, where he thought if he couldn’t trust Martin, then he couldn’t trust anyone, but he always turned his phone off and went to sleep instead. He told himself it was because he wanted to keep Martin safe, because Martin was already too close and if he knew something, and if someone knew he knew something, then they could hurt him to find out exactly what that knowledge was. And Jon wouldn’t have that, of course. 

So it wasn’t really a lie he was telling himself then. More like only admitting a half-truth.) 

* * *

The archives were stifling at night. Especially now, as summer crept slowly in, and the heat sank and steeped and stayed within these old stone walls. 

Martin hated it. It reminded him of those last few sluggish weeks before Prentiss attacked, of long nights spent in document storage, the old terror of silver worms all stretched out and familiar, losing its sharpness and intensity as time wore on. Plus, it’d been a while since Martin had stayed here so late, but he had work to do. Important work, too, for once - work for Jon, questions he’d given and asked for answers to during his trip abroad. 

Martin checked the time, and then checked the clock app on his phone to double-check the time over the pond as well. He let out a breath, stretched his back, reshuffled some of the papers on his desk, and stopped delaying the inevitable. He scrolled down into his recent texts, clicked Jon’s name, and called him.

The phone only rang once before he answered. “Martin?” 

Martin’s eyes narrowed immediately at the sound. Jon’s voice was oddly hoarse, almost sluggish. He sounded as though he’d been laid up in bed sick for weeks, which couldn’t be right, because Martin had spoken to him only a few days earlier. 

“Jon, are you alright?” Martin asked, carefully keeping the weariness out of his own voice. 

“Fine,” Jon said, and then let out something Martin could generously describe as a wheeze. “Just been busy in America. Haven’t slept much. What’s going on over there?” 

“You don’t sound-” Martin bit down on his words. “Fine. I think I found some more of that information on Gertrude you said you were looking for.” 

“Oh?” Jon said on the other end, sounding as though he’d perked up somewhat. “What did you find?” 

“Okay, well, there wasn’t _much_ I could access without having the right credentials,” Martin started, sifting through the papers on his desk and pulling up the tab he needed on his laptop. “But, it looks like when Gertrude got arrested for trespassing like you said, she ended up being released pretty quickly without actually being charged? Dunno why, though. They didn’t list any sort of reasons on the records.” He paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard. “Where did you say she was found?” 

“Er - a morgue, I believe,” Jon answered. “The one where Gerard Keay’s body was being held.” 

Martin grimaced. “Christ.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, like I said, without being a literal American police officer, there isn’t much more I can find out from what’s online. Although…” Martin squinted up at his laptop screen, saw a tab on the page he hadn’t noticed before, and clicked on it. “Oh! I found the name of the person who arrested her, if that helps at all?” 

“That - that would be great,” Jon said. 

“Great!” Martin said. He read the name out loud for Jon and then spelled it for good measure while hearing a faint scribbling sound over the phone. 

“That’s - thank you, Martin.” Jon let out a long, rattling breath. “Really.” 

“‘Course,” Martin said, suddenly glad they were only talking over the phone as he felt his face flush. “No problem.” There was a long pause, then, both of them likely trying to figure out if there was anything they had left to say. Finally, Jon spoke. 

“So - how, how have you been? A-all of you? Are things still going okay there?” 

Martin teetered back and forth for a moment, considering. There had certainly been a _lot_ he could fill Jon in on that had occurred since their last call. Tim’s statement. Melanie’s mood shift. Elias, hovering in the background of both occasions, watching with bright eyes. And, Martin thought, it would be so nice to talk to someone about it, to commiserate together about everything that had happened, especially now that Tim was never here and Basira was always buried in a book and Melanie was always glaring daggers at every shadow.

But Jon was busy - far too busy for the latest drama in the archives, far too busy out traveling and trying to learn the right things in order to save the world. So Martin shook his head, grateful again that Jon couldn’t see him, and decided he would fill Jon in when the latter returned. “I’ve been alright,” he started, “but… I haven’t seen much of Tim, lately, or Daisy, I guess. Basira’s basically just been reading or researching.”

“What about Melanie?” Jon asked immediately, and Martin winced. “I tried to get through to her to ask her for help as well, but haven’t heard anything.” 

“Oh,” Martin said, reaching out for a pencil to tap nervously against his leg, “I think she’s just busy, you know, lots on her mind with everything going on. Might not be… checking her phone?” 

“Right,” Jon said, sounding vaguely unconvinced. “What about the statements, then, reading them, you’re still okay? Have the others been helping you?” 

“Oh, uh, yeah!” Martin blinked in surprise and sat up a bit straighter. “It’s - Melanie actually read a few, and I think Basira’s going to start as well, so that’s - they’ve been helping, yeah.” 

“Good, that’s - that’s good to hear.” 

“Um - yeah.” Martin closed his laptop and started haphazardly putting the papers on his desk into unlabeled manila folders, while Jon was quiet on the other end of the phone, hundreds of miles away. Last time they’d spoken, he’d been nearly as far, just in the other direction. “So… how are _you_ doing? How’s America?” 

“It’s big,” Jon grumbled, and Martin laughed before he could stop himself. 

“Is it? Which city are you in now?”

“Pittsburgh, but I started by flying in to Chicago. That lead went nowhere, however, so I ended up on a _seven_ -hour bus ride to come up here, speak to some of the nurses at the hospital where Gerard died.” 

“Now there’s a horror story,” Martin said, teasing, and Jon laughed softly, the noise staticky through the phone. 

“Quite,” he said. “After I’m finished here, I’ll be getting back on the bus and heading down to D.C., stopping in at the Usher Foundation to see what they know.” 

“Right. That’s like, the American version of us, yeah?” 

“More or less.” 

“And you’re sure you can trust them?” Martin asked quickly. 

Jon let out a heavy breath. “Don’t really have a choice, I suppose,” he said. Martin nodded to himself. 

“Yeah. Do try to be safe, then, alright?” 

“Always do.”

Martin barely suppressed a snort before opening his mouth to argue the point, and instead found himself hastily attempting to abort a large yawn. He didn’t quite succeed, and the late hour on the digital clock on his desk blinked expectantly up him. Martin just turned away and rubbed his eyes. 

“…Martin?” 

“Mhm.” 

“What time is it over there?” 

“It’s - don’t worry about it.” 

_“Martin.”_

“Look, I was just trying to call at a good time for you, alright?” Martin could sense the end of the call looming, so he stood up, started shoving anything else he needed into his bag. On the other end, Jon was quiet, and Martin could practically hear him doing the mental math. “Plus, I had to stay late in the archives for some work, anyway.” 

Jon took a slow breath in, and Martin privately prepared himself for another berating, another one of those long lectures from Jon that had been so common back before Prentiss. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Jon mumbled instead, and Martin almost dropped his bag at hearing how awkwardly sincere and _embarrassed_ Jon sounded, even more so than when he’d stumbled over his words trying to talk to Martin after returning from the Stranger’s clutches. 

“Oh,” Martin said, intellectually. “Jon, really, it’s fine, I - I wanted to.” 

“Yes, well. You should probably go. Get some rest,” Jon said, his last few words caught up in a cough. Martin couldn’t help but note he sounded nearly worse than when they’d started the call, his voice still raspy, like he had a bad cold. He also couldn’t help but note the slight disappointment in his tone. 

“Yeah, I will, but - you’re sure you’re alright?” Martin asked, trying one last time. “‘Cause you _do_ sound kind of-”

“Yes, I’m fine. Just…” Jon sighed. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been at the Institute, I think.” 

“Oh.” Martin’s heart twisted in his chest. “It’s that bad?”

“It seems so,” Jon said quietly, before clearing his throat. “Now, please go get some sleep.” 

“Okay, well, just call us if you need anything else, any information or-” 

“Good _night,_ Martin.” 

“Right. Yeah. Goodnight, Jon.” 

* * *

(The first phone call Martin received after the Unknowing was not, as he’d hoped, from Jon, but instead from a frantic, shellshocked Basira. He only managed to listen to a few fragmented sentences before quickly getting the gist and choking out some garbled collection of words that probably held meaning enough. Then he put the phone down on the cot without even remembering to hang up, and waited for the hollowness to pass through him before the grief could hit like an ocean wave during a storm, like a wall of brick, like a train cutting through the fog, like some other comparison that would probably sound poetic if he could get it down on paper, but there was no room in him for poetry, now.

His phone rang again, and again, and again, all while Martin ignored it, and the fog tumbled inside him, growing and leaking.) 

* * *

The phone rang. And it rang, and it rang, and it rang. Jon held it close to his ear, waiting. 

The Unknowing was tomorrow, and he was standing outside the bed-and-breakfast in Great Yarmouth, watching the last glimpses of the sun disappear behind the trees. Daisy, Basira, and Tim were all inside. None of them were talking to each other, and the silence in there had been smothering and humid, sticking in Jon’s throat. They’d gone over the plan, the official one, the one for them, again and again and again on the car ride up, until Jon felt like it was tattooed against the roofs of all their mouths. So there was nothing else to talk about now. Not really. 

They didn’t dare pass a whisper of the other plan - Martin’s plan. They never knew when Elias might be tuning in to listen or to watch. 

Still. That was the plan that hovered at the forefront of Jon’s mind as he waited out in the thick summer evening air with a ringing phone. That was the plan that caused his free hand to fidget restlessly with the loose string on his sleeve, the plan that steeped his stomach in dread. 

He wasn’t worried about his plan tomorrow, his grand role to play. He could deal with dying. 

The phone rang. Eventually, the ringing clicked out, and the voicemail stepped in. 

“Hi, this is Martin K. Blackwood. I’m not around at the moment, so if you could just leave a message…”

Jon lowered the phone, ready to end the call, then paused, and reconsidered. He brought the phone back up, catching the end of the recorded message and the telltale beep letting him know it was his turn to speak. He hesitated before remembering he was on limited time. 

“Martin,” he started, and for a long second he could not think of a single other word to say. “It’s - it’s Jon. Which, you knew, obviously, it’s just - look, I’m just, just calling to, um. I’m just calling to make sure you’re alright,” he finally got out in a rush. Jon sighed and leaned against the side of the shabby house they were staying in. For a brief moment, he wondered again what he was hoping to accomplish. He took a second to exhale before continuing. 

“I-I know tomorrow is going to be, well,” he broke off into a brief and rueful chuckle, “a lot. We’ve just arrived at the bed-and-breakfast, by the way, so I guess I wanted to check in? Um. Listen, your idea, it’s - it’s good, it’ll work. I know that.” 

And it was - a perfectly placed distraction within a distraction, one that could grant Jon and the others some privacy to do their work and could harm the Institute, one that would make Elias’ bright eyes spin in their sockets. 

But Jon had _seen_ Melanie after her ‘performance review’, and he had seen the way the anger that had always lingered in the back of her eyes had jumped to the front, murderous and immediate. He couldn’t imagine the same happening to Martin. He did not want to imagine the same happening to Martin. 

That’s not really why he called, though. He wished it was, wished he could only have been calling to check-in and reaffirm a plan. 

“It’s just that - look, I also wanted to, uh-” Goddamn it. 

He’d listened to the tapes he’d requested before they all left. Of course, he had. He’d asked for them for a reason, and he wasn’t going to die tomorrow without listening to what they said. 

He tried to ignore the anger that stomped through Melanie’s statement, tried to ignore the revenge and finality in Tim’s. 

But he couldn’t ignore Martin’s statement. The worry woven into his words, for everyone, for the mission, for the world - and for Jon. The plea for him to come back safe. 

Jon wondered what he had ever done to deserve someone who seemed to care for his wellbeing so thoroughly. 

“I - I listened to your tape, Martin, and I wanted to - look, if I get back, w-when I get back, can we - could we-?” Jon ground his teeth. “I don’t know, just - call me back, okay?” Jon moved the phone away from his ear and hung up before he could rethink it, and then shoved it in his pocket and pressed the heels of his palms against his aching temple. 

He _did_ know what he was trying to accomplish, of course. He just wasn’t ready to admit to himself yet. Not completely. Thinking about it in clear, defined terms, instead of just vague notions… that would make it far more real and far more frightening than he was prepared to deal with right now. 

Christ. He just wanted to talk to Martin one more time before the Unknowing. Before he died. 

Jon sighed, and wished vaguely that he’d thought to bring a cigarette. 

The sun had now long since disappeared beneath the horizon, but the light pollution of this beach town kept the sky a sickly grey-blue, covered in weak clouds. Jon stared at it. They were leaving before dawn. Would this be the last sky he would ever see? 

Still, he didn’t go back inside. He wasn’t waiting for Martin to call back, of course. It was late, and Martin had probably already gone to sleep for the night, would probably not have time to check his phone in the morning before everything started happening. 

Jon ought to get some sleep before tomorrow, and he knew that, but, still, he didn’t go back inside. Inside was too full, too stifling and suffocating with silence and anger and anticipation. Inside would mean Tim looking at him, resentment and defeat in his eyes, and Daisy looking at him, cold calculation and murder in hers. The scar wrapped around Jon’s throat prickled at the thought of Daisy’s gaze focused in on him once more. 

He wished Martin would call.

Jon lingered outside. He took deep, full breaths of the evening air. He’d never thought to be grateful for breathing before, but suddenly every sensation was a gift, that he only really had a limited amount of time left to enjoy. 

And, sure, they had a good plan. Just walk in and blow the place to smithereens. But Jon _had_ been kidnapped by Nikola for a month, and during that time he’d learned more about the Circus than he ever wanted to, and he knew better than to be optimistic about his chances. He’d read far too many statements to harbor any hope of everyone making it out this thing tomorrow alive and intact. He barely had hope of _anyone_ making it out alive. 

The minutes passed. The sky didn’t grow much darker. 

Maybe he should have been grateful Martin hadn’t picked up. What would he even have said? There was no combination of words he could possibly string together that would actually improve either of their situations. 

Still. 

Jon wasn’t sure of much of anything these days. His own thoughts felt unfamiliar, knowledge that wasn’t his dropping in without explanation at increasing and alarming rates. He couldn’t be sure how often what he thought he felt during statements was really what he was feeling, or if it was just some other emotion placed there by the Beholding. Despite that, though, Jon _was_ sure that if he could pick someone to speak with for the last time, someone to hold his final, real conversation with, he’d pick Martin - and wasn’t that just something. 

Jon wasn’t an idiot. Mostly. He knew how he felt, even if he couldn’t define it, even if it scared him. He was pretty sure he knew how Martin felt. But he also knew that, as always, he’d had really shitty timing. He couldn’t stop thinking, over and over, that if he’d just realized a bit sooner, perhaps he could have said something, the right something that could have started something new and scary and exciting. Instead, though, he’d come to his senses just too late. The end of the world didn’t leave much room for anything else. 

Nothing to be done about it now, he supposed. 

Finally, Jon stood up straight and stretched, relishing the feeling of having muscles and bones that still moved, blood that still pumped through his veins. He rubbed at his eyes, and turned to head inside when his phone began to ring in his pocket. 

Jon practically jumped a foot in the air, and then nearly dropped the damn thing into the grass in his frantic attempts to retrieve it from his pocket, and, when he finally held it upright in his hands, his heart didn’t skip a beat as much as it flew up and lodged itself in his throat when he saw Martin’s name flashing on the screen. 

He answered the call immediately. 

“Martin?” 

“Jon?”

“Listen, I-I’m sorry, I’m a bit tired, I probably shouldn’t have - you can probably ignore that last voicemail, it’s-” 

“Jon.” 

“-not really important, or, I guess, it is, but it probably shouldn’t be, right now, what with the Unknowing and everything else going-” 

_“Jon._ Look, I - I meant what I said on the tape.” 

Jon paused. “Right.” 

“Is that - is that okay?” Martin asked, and Jon almost laughed, a dizzy feeling rushing through him. 

“It’s - yes.” Jon breathed in. “It’s okay.” 

“Oh. Um, good.” Martin’s voice was staticky and hesitant. “Are you - is everything okay? I, I mean, not okay, I guess, but, you know - relatively? How are things going up there?” 

“Yes, it’s-” Jon exhaled, shifted the phone to his other ear. “Everything is good. Fine. Everyone else is inside right now, and we’re all just sort of… waiting, I suppose.” 

“Yeah.” 

“And you’re-?”

“Fine, yeah. Spending the night in document storage, so, you know, just like old times.” Martin gave a slightly nervous laugh. “The cot in here is still stiff as anything, though.” 

“Yes, I… I don’t think I could forget how uncomfortable that thing is,” Jon said. Perhaps it was a bit bizarre, he thought to himself, to be standing around the night before the end of the world, commiserating with Martin over the Institute’s cheap furniture, but that was alright. Better than saying everything he’d almost let out in a voicemail, anyway. Probably for the best. 

“Yeah.” Martin’s voice shifted, and it sounded as though he was talking through a slight smile. “Living here for months was _not_ fun, but - remember when the worms were the worst thing we had to deal with?” 

“It was certainly a lot easier when all we had to do was squish them under our feet on our way into the Institute,” Jon muttered. Martin laughed softly on the other end, miles and miles away, and Jon found himself smiling at the sound. His cheeks ached, as though it had been far too long since he was happy enough to offer up even the tiny grin currently cradling his face. 

“Never thought I’d miss sleeping with a corkscrew,” Martin said, with a final tiny hiccup of laughter. “Although, actually, I think - yep. It’s right there. Still sitting on the filing cabinet by the desk, and still… eugh.” 

“Just like old times,” Jon echoed. Martin didn’t say anything to that except to offer a short exhale of a laugh, so for a minute, they were both quiet, holding the phones up to their ears. Finally, Jon sighed. “Look, Martin-” 

“Jon-” 

“Can we just - I don’t know. If, if I get back, can we - can we just talk?” 

“We’re talking now,” Martin reminded him, voice gone soft and gentle around the edges. “And you’re going to come back from this. You’ll be fine, you all will.” 

“Promise?” 

“Jon.” 

“Yeah.” Jon looked down at his feet. The grass beneath him was patchy and discolored, washed out in the artificial light around him. “You know what I mean, though, don’t you?” 

_“When_ you get back,” Martin started, slowly, “we can go get sandwiches at the canteen by the Institute. Just like we used to, before… everything else happened.” 

“You mean just like back when I thought you were trying to murder me,” Jon said, voice dry. 

“I don’t think you ever really thought that,” Martin said, and his voice was so matter-of-fact it took Jon aback for a moment, and he hesitated. 

“Maybe,” he said eventually. He kicked at a piece of gravel in the dirt. “I don’t know anymore.” 

“So we can get sandwiches, because you _do_ still need to eat, and then we can talk, yeah?” 

“When I get back,” Jon murmured. 

“When you get back,” Martin repeated. Jon closed his eyes. 

“Right,” he finally said, after the moment had stretched for far too long. “I’ll see you then, I suppose.” 

“Yeah,” Martin said, his voice impossibly soft. “I’ll see you then.” 

Jon knew he did not want to wait until then to see Martin. He wanted to see Martin now, more than ever, wanted to run from this cramped bed-and-breakfast back to London, back to Martin sitting in the dark and tiny room of document storage, and to say he didn’t care what happened to the rest of the world, that it wasn’t his problem anymore. 

He couldn’t say that, though. It wouldn’t be true, after all, so he still had to go tomorrow, had to stop an apocalypse, had to figure out if he was really still human at all. But he still wanted to see Martin now, and for a moment, he considered telling him that. For a moment, he imagined saying the words that had danced in the back of his throat for months, now. 

_I wish you were here,_ he wanted to say, and _I’m sorry, and I wish I was there with you, and I-_

“I should probably get some sleep,” he said instead. “It’s - it’s getting late.” 

“Same here,” Martin said, yawning audibly. 

“I guess this is goodnight then,” Jon said, hoping he didn’t sound as pathetic as he felt, like he was already falling apart at the seams and ending this phone call would tug his last thread loose. 

“Guess so,” Martin said. He took a breath in before speaking quickly. “Look, I - just stay safe, yeah? Call me again when it’s all over, so I know you’re alright.”

“Yeah, I will, o-of course, I will,” Jon promised, his chest tightening at the shift in Martin’s tone, the desperate spike of fear he’d clearly been trying to bury down until the last moment. 

“Right. Good. I - goodnight, then, Jon,” Martin said, his voice small. 

“Goodnight, Martin,” Jon said, and, as always, waited for Martin to hang up, waited for the telltale click and rush of static. Ten seconds passed, then thirty, and it was nearly a full minute before Martin must finally have hit the _end call_ button, and yet Jon still held the now-empty phone to his ear. 

There was so much more he could have said.

He stayed outside for awhile longer, staring up into the half-dark sky, but soon his exhaustion began to wear him down, and, heavy-footed, he returned inside, very decidedly less-than-thrilled about the prospect of attempting to sleep for a few short hours before waking up and leaving for the wax museum. And indeed he barely slept, Martin’s words and Martin’s plan running like ticker tape through his mind, until eventually he began to drift off, thinking back to those lunches together when things really did seem that much simpler. There was a part of him that missed those lunches, missed the simple peace and relative safety they’d provided. But there was a much larger part of him that found he was ready now to push forward, to find out what happened next, what happened when he called Martin after the Unknowing was over. 

Jon finally fell asleep dwelling on the thought of getting to hear Martin’s smile the next time he rang. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you sm for reading!! 
> 
> title from to noise making (sing) by hozier 
> 
> for more from me:  
> [tumblr](https://thirteenthdyke.tumblr.com)  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/lesbophone)  
> [jmart playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4CzzVCaLyMD4yTrFPwiJGX?si=d5UaqxYQRWOIO5vx3l3nsQ)


End file.
